


Vuelie

by karauna



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Foxes, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, and its pink, except it's a singular fox, kakashi just wants to go back home, naruto wants to beat up izunami, sasuke's coming along for the ride cos he loves them even if he wont admit it, team "bros before hoes" seven, this is happening, why am I doing this to myself, y'all mind if i fanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-05 14:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21209855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karauna/pseuds/karauna
Summary: It all started with a walk to Tsunami's house and the lingering scent of sea-salt. Then the trees started growing, a disembodied voice started bargaining, and all sense of peace got shot to hell.In front of Sakura lies two choices. One, go back to her rose-tinted reality; back to praising Sasuke's lackluster biceps and pretending everything's fine. Or. She could become a spirit-guide, reclaim Uzushio, and lead her team on a journey to kill the gods themselves.She went with the obvious choice.(In which, spirits are real, gods are cruel, and nothing can stop Team Seven once they're on the warpath.)





	1. Transferral

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gem of the Eddy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14043207) by [beetlebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetlebee/pseuds/beetlebee). 
  * Inspired by [Spirit-Touched](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034646) by [phooykazooi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phooykazooi/pseuds/phooykazooi). 

> yes the title is a frozen reference. no im not going to apologise. the OOOOOO'ing and AAAAAAAAA'ing in the song is a good vibe for writing, ok

Sakura didn’t know what happened. One moment she was just walking back to Tsunami’s house, minding her own business, and now she was stuck in a forest that definitely wasn’t here earlier.

Correction: A very big, very dark, very ominous forest that really _wasn’t_ _meant to be here_.

Fear welled up in her chest, feeling the subconscious tensing of her muscles as her fingers inched towards her hip-pouch.

Somewhere between the trees, a twig snapped.

For a long moment, her emerald eyes just stared unerringly into the darkness-- ears catching onto every creak of the branches and every instance of the howling wind as her senses kicked into overdrive. Her hands began to tremble as the silence continued to drag on, and Sakura wondered if it was too late to leave--.

**“YOU WILL WORK NICELY.”**

\--Then suddenly the world turned black. For a second, Sakura thought she’d been asleep and was about to wake up and find that this whole thing was just a dream. Which, you know, would’ve honestly been _ great_.

A little bit unnerving, sure, but otherwise great.

But then, she felt the steady brush of the breeze against the hairs on her arms and the reassuring thrum of her chakra. She was aware of her galloping heartbeat and the sound of rushing blood in her ears and realised quite suddenly that, _ unfortunately_, this was very, very real.

And she couldn’t. _ See. Anything_.

**“OH RIGHT-- HANG ON. WAIT.”**

It took a moment for her mind to catch up, but then her brain practically flat-lined. She’d heard a voice. There was someone else here with her.

Sakura swore her heart was on the verge of stopping. Her fingers fumbled in her panic as she blindly pulled out a kunai and lashed it out in front of her. Spindly fingers shakily formed a seal in her spare hand, and she begged to anything that was listening that it’d _ work_. “Kai.”

Nothing changed. It felt like her heart turned to stone.

**“WOAH WOAH WOAH, PUT THE POINTY THING DOWN, CHILD.”**

Honestly, Sakura didn’t know whether to laugh, scream or cry at this point. This was hysterical. This was weird. This was _ stupid_.

Wait-- stupid. What else does she know is stupid? She connects some loose threads lazily in her mind, and latched onto the first thing she could blame this whole mess on.

Her eyes narrowed. _ Naruto. _

She ignores the part of her that says she’s panicking. The part that says she’s just looking for a scapegoat-- something she can blame all of this on to stay sane. She doesn’t know how, but she’s just so sure that this whole mess is his fault. He’s pulling a prank on her or something, and both of her teammates are laughing at her right this moment in the treeline.

She could feel her face burn up with sudden heat as mortification truly set in. That… _ idiot! _ Of course he’d pull something like this! He’s so dead when she finds him, mark her words.

“Naruto!” Sakura shoved her kunai back into her pouch, still blindly whirling around in the darkness. “Stop this dumb prank right now before I punch your lights out! This isn’t funny, it’s just _ stupid_, you idiot!”

**“...WHAT.”**

Her teeth scraped together in her anger. So this was how he wanted to play it, huh? Innocent until proven otherwise? Fine. The next time she spoke, she made sure that it sickeningly sweet and sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Oh yeah, she's definitely going to murder him when she has the chance.

“Oh come _ on _ Naruto. I know it’s you. You’re the only one that’s enough of a moron to think this is even remotely funny! Now, _ cut it out_.”

**“I’M NOT NARUTO.”**

Sakura scoffed. “Yes you are. You aren’t fooling me.” Who does this guy think he is? 

**“YOU’RE STUCK IN A SCARY FOREST, YOUR VISION IS SUDDENLY GONE, AND THERE’S A DISEMBODIED VOICE SPEAKING TO YOU. I’M NOT NARUTO.”**

She pointedly ignored her growing sense of unease with all the grace of a raging bull, and abruptly shook her fist in some random direction in the darkness. She’s just getting more and more pissed the more this dork _ talks_.

“Oh, come on Naruto. Even _ you _don’t hold onto these pranks for this long. Just drop it, come out, and let me kill you, easy as pie-- not that you’d know how to make it.”

**“YOU’RE CRAZY. LEGITIMATELY INSANE.”**

She felt her brow twitch. This utter _ cad_. “Am _ not_.”

**“ARE TOO.”**

“No I’m not!”

**“YES YOU ARE. STOP WHINING.”**

Something finally solidified in the pit of her stomach. Dread, fear and anxiety swirled together in a horrific mass of feelings, and Sakura could swear that it was harder than ever to even _ breathe_.

No matter how much she called him stupid, or hit him, or threatened him-- he’d never say that to her. Never in a million years.

“...You really aren’t Naruto, are you?”

**“NOT AT ALL. I TOLD YOU SO.”**

And, just like that, all feeling drained out of her limbs. Her spine dropped from its steel-bound posture and drooped with the weight of her terror. She stumbled forwards, feet tangling amongst themselves before her legs crumbled from beneath her. Sakura plummeted to the ground, knees colliding painfully with the earth, before she cradled her head in her hands.

Some part of her screams in protest-- that she needs to stand up, to be ready, to _ survive_. She needs to call for her team and for Kakashi and put distance between them and-- and there’s another part of her that freely admits she’s pretty much doomed already. This- this _ thing _ put her under what’s at least an A-Rank genjutsu without her even knowing it was there in the first place.

Obviously, it was just a genjutsu. _ Obviously_. It has to be, right? It couldn’t possibly be anything else, or else she’d know. Genjutsu are subtly and impermanent and she’d be able to see again as soon as they ran out of chakra. She had to. _ She had to_.

She ignored the part of her that whispered about ancient kekkei genkai and unfathomable power and innumerable possibilities. She didn’t want logic; she wanted closure.

Then again, nothing about this situation was even remotely comforting.

“What the _ fuck_.” She pointedly ignoring the burning sensation in her eyes. Sakura swiped her hand against her cheek, rubbing away the tear-tracks. “_What the actual fuck_.”

**“WOAH. WAIT NO-- HOLD ON. NO, DON’T CRY, PLEASE DON’T CRY. HEY, DO YOU LIKE KNOCK KNOCK JOKES.”**

“I-I,” Sakura hated how her voice stuttered and broke, it reminded her too much of the Academy, but she couldn’t stop it. “I-I want t-to go back to m-my _ team_. I w-want to s-see again.”

**“KNOC KNOC-- OH, OF COURSE. HOLD ON. A THOUSAND PARDONS.”**

She blinked and suddenly, the world flooded back into colour. Black was replaced by greens, blues and browns-- a sudden wave of vibrancy that caused her eyes and brain to painfully twinge at the rapid return of visual feedback. Almost incredulously, Sakura raised her hands to her face.

She never thought she’d be so happy just to see her _ fingers_. “And… can I-I get out of this forest now?”

**“YOU CAN GO BACK TO YOUR TEAM SOON. BUT FIRST, YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING.”**

She tried her best to subtly swivel her head around the clearing, attempting to put a face to the voice. But, no matter what, she couldn’t see… anything. “A-and… what do I need to do?”

**“YOU MUST LEAD YOUR TEAM TO UZUSHIO.”**

Sakura paused. The name was… familiar. She recalled a village sharing that name being a previous ally of Konoha. Her brows knit together, unable to help her curiosity. “Uzushiogakure was destroyed by Kiri years ago. There’s not even rubble left behind. Why w-would you even want me to go there!”

**“THERE IS A SCROLL THERE. A SCROLL YOU MUST RETURN TO ME.”**

She frowned. Scary powers or not, she didn’t even know if this stranger was just some random ninja threatening her into betraying her village or not.

But there was an energy in the air-- a foreign energy that seemed both primordial and completely foreign. It was something so different to chakra, like a soothing chill instead of the usual spark of motion, but it also felt so _ familiar_.

Well. She was a curious bookworm by nature. “Does it have to do with this chakra-that’s-not-chakra stuff?”

**“YES. UZUSHIO WILL BE THE FIRST STEP TO RECLAMATION.”**

Her heart stuttered. Even going to _ Uzushio _ would take at least a week. Would the Hokage even _ allow _ it? And if they even thought about going off by themselves…

Kami. They’d be labelled missing-nin. She’d never see her father again. She’d never see her mother’s shrine again. “No deal. I’m not throwing away my life--.”

**“LEAVE THE HOKAGE TO ME. NOT EVEN HE WILL DENY MY WORDS.”**

Sakura startled upright, jerking back as the voice seemed to read her mind. She could hold back her shudder, a sharp lance of fear flashing through her. Not even the Yamanaka could do that-- not without concentrating, at least.

“Okay,” she started carefully. “What makes you think I’ll even agree, anyway?”

There was a strong silence that almost seemed to echo around her.

There weren’t any birds, or rabbits, or any semblance of wildlife. As far as she could tell, the only living, _ breathing _ thing here was her. Her, and whatever the hell this thing was. Sakura felt sweat bead down the side of her face, resisting the urge to wring her hands together as she tried to figure out which direction Tsunami’s home was.

A quick glance up at the sky revealed nothing. The stars she’d learned how to read were strange and warped-- and a great deal more plentiful than what should be realistically possible. Instead of the usual dull purple, the sky was alighted in a brilliant array of twilight hues. Bright starbursts and chromatic pinpricks of light peppered the horizon-- of which, a strange, _ very much blue_, full moon hung.

That’s… not normal.

All of a sudden, Sakura felt a lot smaller than she had before. Forming a seal with her fingers, she mumbled another quick, “Kai.”

Nothing changed. Again.

**“TELL ME. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GODS?”**

She went still.

Oh.

Oh _ hell _ no.

She wasn’t even religious, but she’s not about to go and get tangled up in some sort of _ cultist’s _fantasy world.

**“ONCE UPON A TIME, THE WORLD WAS NEW. AND, WITH THE BIRTH OF THIS PLANET, WE WERE MADE TO CARE FOR IT.”**

Sakura’s throat felt like it was getting tighter and tighter with every word. Before she even knew what she was doing, she bolted blindly into the trees-- eyes wide and wild as her heart beat so fast it felt like it’d flat line.

Yet, no matter how far she ran, the voice always followed and the forest never. _ Stopped. Growing. _

**“WE WERE THE FIRST. WE WERE THE ORIGINALS. WE, THE SPIRITS, GREW THE LAND AND TILLED THE SOIL AND FILLED THE OCEANS. WE WATCHED HUMANS GROW AND EVOLVE AND OVERCOME, AND WE WATCHED YOU TURN FROM CHILD TO BOY TO MAN.”**

Faster and faster, she pushed herself. _ Keep going, ignore it, ignore it, ignoreitignoreit--. _

**“THEN THE GODS CAME. AS SOON AS THEY TOUCHED THE SKIES, THEY BROUGHT DEATH.”**

She stumbled over her feet, pitching forward uselessly as she lost contact with the ground. For a single, thunderous moment, she lost contact with the ground. Sakura braced herself as much as she could, crossing her forearms in front of her face as the earth rose up to meet her.

She waited for pain.

**“WE DISAPPEARED. WE PERISHED. WE DIED.”**

And she kept waiting. And waiting. And _ waiting. _

After the moments turned into long, drawn-out seconds of silence, Sakura’s eyes hesitantly flickered open. What she saw made her eyes nearly pop out of her sockets.

**“WE WERE DRIVEN OUT AND FORCED TO WATCH AS THEY CORRUPTED THE PLANET WITH PAIN AND JEALOUSY AND RAGE. WHERE THEY STOOD, LIVES WERE LOST. WHERE THEY WALKED, WAR SWIFTLY FOLLOWED.”**

An enormous _white _fox was staring down at her. Its paws were fixed on her shoulders, a steady counterbalance, before they gently pushed her back upright-- ice-blue eyes remaining transfixed on something in the middle of her forehead. A long-buried sense of shame filled her, a lingering terror from her days of 'bill-board brow' and jeering faces.

Self-consciously, Sakura reached up to rub her brow. She inched away from the animal, taking careful notice of how it was _ twice _ her size.

She shuddered to think of how big its teeth were.

**“****AND NOW. WE WILL STOP THEM. WE WILL FIX THE WORLD. WE WILL GIVE PEACE, AND NOT THE PEACE THE RABBIT QUEEN CRAVES FOR SO HASTILY. BUT TO DO THAT, WE NEED THE SCROLL.** **”**

Then, incredulously enough, white-hot _ rage _ flashed through her chest at the words. She had nothing else to focus on except the animal in front of her and, as terrified as she was, Sakura was _ angry _ and _ scared _ and _ alone_. This shouldn't be happening to her, of all people, she'd done nothing. She'd been a good daughter to her father, done her best to be a good teammate for her genin, and been nice! This... this shouldn't be _happening_. Not to her.

She didn’t even know what she did to deserve this.

Then again, maybe in hindsight... she really might've actually deserved this. She hit Naruto, neglected her teacher's training and followed Sasuke around despite how much he didn't want her. It burned her to say it, but... the Uchiha just didn't like her as a friend, much less as a wife. And is that truly what she wanted in the first place? To be some sort of angelic saving grace for an angst-ridden, traumatised boy?

There was a part of her that hesitated to admit the truth, but in the end, a resounding 'no' was all the answer she had to give. No, she didn't want to live her life getting belittled. No, she didn't want to be the side-character to Sasuke's plotline. No, she didn't want to just be... to just be a throwaway.

What an odd time to have this epiphany.

Maybe she deserved it after all, in hindsight. Some sort of punishment to get her on track again-- but _ this_? This was-- “Stupid,” Sakura hissed, snarling up at the snowy lupine sitting so _ gracefully _ in front of her. “This is so _ stupid. _ Why me? Why not someone else? There’s a million others that would love to be this important. Choose one of them and _ leave me alone_.”

For the longest moment, there was nothing but stillness.

Then, the animal moved. It shifted into a crouch, the pristine fur that lined its back smoothing down as it tried its best to manoeuvre down to her height. If this was done in any other situation, Sakura would think that it’d be adorable.

But she didn’t. Instead, she just felt afraid.

Two wide blue eyes stared unflinchingly into her own, and she dimly realised that it didn’t have any pupils or sclera. The entire eye was a frosty, vibrant blue and glowed with some eerie green mist.

_ Almost like magic,_ some part of her hums.

**“****I CHOSE YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE WHAT KEPT YOUR FAMILY TOGETHER WHEN YOUR MOTHER DIED. I CHOSE YOU, BECAUSE YOU WILL DO WHAT’S RIGHT WHEN IT MATTERS. I DO NOT NEED BLIND KINDNESS, LIKE YOUR UZUMAKI. I DO NOT NEED PEERLESS SKILL, LIKE YOUR UCHIHA.** **”**

Sakura actually… almost felt flattered. Well, she _ did _ feel flattered, to be honest.

No one really mentioned anything positive about her in conversation-- nothing that was _ meaningful_, anyway. She’d always craved validation and acceptance, always wanted to be told that she was doing the right thing, that she was doing _ better _ than others. 

But she hadn’t gotten that in a long, long time. Not since Mebuki…

Her heart twinged painfully and she brushed it aside with ease. That was a pain to be revisited another time-- a time when she wasn’t talking with some sort of ancestral ghost of the land.

Kami. She sounds _ crazy _ and she’s believing everything this entity is telling her.

Maybe it’s right about what they say about life or death situations. You never regret what you’ve done until you lost the chance to chance it. If she gets out of this alive, she _ vows _ to take her training seriously and to get over her crush on Sasuke. She never wants to get caught out like this again.

She tries one last ditch defense. “What about Kakashi-sensei? He’s good. He’s strong. He’s nice, too.”

The unspoken _ ‘he’s better than me’ _ hung in the air. Even if it was true, it still… hurt to say she was useless.

**“HE IS STRONG. HE IS WISE. BUT, HE IS NOT ** ** _YOU_ ** **. HE WILL CRUMBLE UNDER HIS SINS AND THIS TIME, HE WOULD NOT RECOVER.”**

_ This isn’t fair_, Sakura wanted to scream. _ This isn’t fair, this was only meant to be a C-Rank, this wasn’t meant to happen--. _

Incredibly enough, she didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She didn’t do much of _ anything_, really. Instead, Sakura just stared unseeingly into eyes that had seen the world be created, and she pondered. She wanted to be selfish and ignore everything. She didn’t want to be in danger any more than she already was just because she was a kunoichi, and she _ certainly _ didn’t want to tangle with some probably make-believe gods in the clouds.

This was all fake, she’s sure of it. None of this was real. The fox is just a fox, the voice is just a random villager having fun, and the magic tingling her skin was just a placebo, it wasn’t _ real_.

Then, she remembered things that… that really _ were _real.

The Third Shinobi War was real. The Kyuubi was real. Zabuza was real. _ War _ was real.

She remembered Sasuke’s haunted eyes and the news of his massacred family. She remembered Naruto’s scarred arms, bruised neck and hasty, fear-ridden apologies. She remembered Kakashi’s lost sense of self as he just stumbled along the road of life-- empty and hollow.

That was all caused because of war. All because of angry people getting angry at their lives and taking it out on other people. This spirit is giving her the chance to fix it all; to make sure that none of that would ever happen to anyone ever again. 

It’s giving her the chance to accomplish the dream she’d became a kunoichi for in the first place. This was a spirit, there was no way around that one. It used chakra that wasn't chakra, it turned a silly bunch of trees into a full-blown _forest_ and the sky went from a completely normal aubergine dusk to whatever the hell this was. There was a mystical giant _fox_ that's twice her size in the same space as her, and it's done nothing but stop her from falling over. She's a realist, sure-- but science can't explain chakra, and it sure as fuck can't explain what in the world all of _this_ is.

This person says that the way to end war is through the gods and, for some _inexplicable reason_... Sakura believes them.

Maybe… 

“Will… Will it really stop it all? Will it really make the world better?”

Maybe, just this once, Sakura didn’t mind believing in something.

**“IF YOU’RE STRONG ENOUGH.”**

This was stupid. Trusting in a fat fox was _ stupid_. She shouldn’t do this, she _ really really shouldn’t _ go ahead and do this. But then she just had to remember how sad her idiot teammate looked all the time, and how angry the love of her life looked all the time, and how unhappy everyone _ else _ looked all the time and something in her just--.

Something in her broke.

Before she had a chance to take back anything, Sakura fisted her hands and straightened her spine. “I’ll do it.”

Then, all Sakura saw was an all-encompassing whiteness and the world fell out from beneath her feet.

The fox smiled.

**“LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER.”**

Shaking its head, the snowy lupine gracefully stood. It placed a paw delicately on the unconscious girl’s forehead, magic echoing from within the clearing as the genin shrunk, morphed and then, finally, disappeared beneath a wad of clothing.

It stepped closer, nosing through the pile of red fabric before gently pulling a pale pink fox out from within.

** “SMALLER THAN I EXPECTED, BUT NOT A KIT. GOOD ENOUGH.”**

Huffing, It primly pressed a wet nose to the center of the sleeping fox’s forehead. After a moment passed, a glowing green rune lit up in response. Satisfied, the forest scene around them faded back into reality-- the tall oaks morphing into scraggly pines, while the sapphire moon melted back into a meek waning crescent.

It looked down at Sakura one last time and let out a long, drawn out sigh. 

**“YOUR MOTHER’S GOING TO KILL ME. ”**

Looking over at Tsunami’s house, It winced as the yellow-haired jinchuriki burst out from the door and onto the porch. Not long after, the Uchiha followed him-- tackling the other child into the dirt with an almost _ refined _ scowl.

**“OF COURSE, THAT’S IF KURAMA WON’T BEAT HER TO IT.”**

Yet, despite it all, the end result would be worth it.

Their teacher hobbled out from behind them, hovering over the pair like a flustered mother hen as he peered over their heads into the surrounding forest. A sharp grey eye scoured the tree-line, before it abruptly stopped upon the two foxes.

It smiled disarmingly, then disappeared in a plume of white smoke and howling laughter.

**“AND SO THE PAGE TURNS, TIME BEGINS ANEW AND THE TELLINGS OF A LEGEND COME TO LIFE.”**


	2. Astral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something lives between the stars and the planets, and Sakura doesn't really know what to do about this whole 'congratulations! you're a quadruped now!' thing.

Sakura opened her eyes to blackness, and her first thought was, ‘_not this again_.’

The space in front of her was littered with specks of light and starbursts. An infinite spectrum of light, from blue to orange to purple lay before her-- swirling in a timeless dance as the vastness of space threatened to swallow her whole. Planets were at her feet, immense and powerful and humbling in a way that nothing else could be, while galaxies seemed as if they were just a finger-tip away. Two bright green orbs lit up the space in front of her-- dwarfing the rosette against their immense silhouettes as an eerie quiet pushed against her eardrums.

Mouth dropping open, Sakura could only stare with wide emerald eyes staring at the chromatic landscape that twisted and morphed before her. All of a sudden, she felt both very humbled and terrified. 

She shuddered, and distantly wondered if she’d finally crossed over into the Pure Lands.

Then, she suddenly became aware of a pressure bearing down on her. Sakura breathed, and it felt like water was filling her lungs-- pressing against her limbs and chest as the wild waves raged around her. Her pupils dilated into pin-pricks, fingers clawed uselessly in the air as every movement she made felt as if it were being dragged through molten tar. As the horrifying eternity dragged on, Sakura’s panicked eyes caught sight of _ something _ coiling between the darkness of infinity. Her pounding heart began to slow, and the thunderous ache in the back of her skull numbed as her jaw went slack as she stared, transfixed, at pearlescent scales that reflected a distant sun’s rays.

The green orbs in front of her shuttered into darkness, before peeling back into existence. Two slashes of white marred the surface of the unusually large stars, and her heart nearly stopped as realization hit her like a train.

Eyes, Sakura realizes belatedly. Those are _ eyes. _

So this is what it’s like to be overpowered by mere presence. 

Sakura’s breath was stolen from her for an entirely new reason as she stared at the entity. Those burning, jadefire eyes were attached to a long, serpentine body that filled in the space between celestial bodies-- coiling and flexing and moving endlessly into the dark abyss as pristine scales glistened brilliantly against the lights. Stars dotted the glistening serpent, shining and sharp as warmth radiated from each individual burst of light they gave off. 

Spirit. A _ real _ spirit. This was a force of nature in its natural, unconfined form-- ever conscious, ever expanding, and ever existent. It was omnipotent and horrific and terrible-- but it was so _ beautiful_.

Sakura couldn’t look away no matter how much she wanted to as those cosmic fangs glinted ominously against the shadows. She stared, lips parted in awe, as an overwhelming sense of _ warmth _ enveloped her limbs-- freeing her from the pressure’s hold. She doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know how, but- for some inexplicable reason- Sakura felt _safe_. Even as time and space rippled with every movement the snake made towards her, she didn’t want to even try to move-- didn't even want to make a move that would put her anywhere else besides here.

Staring into eyes bigger than her own sense of reality, Sakura felt… home. Happy. There was an odd sense of belonging the hummed deep in the crevices of her veins and, before she knew what was happening, her hand moved and her spindly pale fingers stretched longing towards It.

The beast let out a huff- a great plume of star-dust billowing forth from sun-encrusted nostrils. Blazing green eyes dimmed to a soft flicker of emerald before, almost inconceivably, the feeling of Its’ scaled snout pressed against Sakura’s fingertips.

Her lips parted, and Sakura’s blatant stare remained transfixed on the sigil glowing in the middle of the titan’s broad forehead. She let out her breath in a slow, awe-filled exhale-- unable to look away as eras and eons passed by like seconds beneath her fingers.

It felt so _ familiar_. Like her mother’s sashimi and her father’s warm hugs and Kakashi’s fond hair ruffles. It was like she was re-experiencing every facet of her life, from the first time she saw Naruto to the last time she heard Sasuke’s voice. Her heart felt so warm and full, and the corners of Sakura’s lips quirked up in fond smile as memories, both good and bad, swarmed her mind’s eye.

Unbeknownst to her, the spirit-serpent looked down at her knowingly; galactic eyes glazing over in sorrow before It let out a gentle croon. Sakura looked up, shocked out of her daze, before suddenly becoming away of the space around her-- or rather, the very suddenly _ disappearing _ space around her.

Seconds was all she had to reel her mind back in as time abruptly sped back up. The leviathan pulled back from her hand as black began to seep into the edges of her vision-- dripping over the crystalline stars and tainting the vivid sky with a dull, inky darkness. Sakura clawed at the shadows as the pressure returned ten-fold, reducing her breath to desperate gasps as her lungs compressed in her chest.

Before she fell, Sakura swore she heard something talk to her.

**“S A V E U S.”**

\--Then blackness clawed at the edges of her vision and inertia sunk deep into the confines of her skull. Her limbs became heavy with numbness and her mouth was locked in a wordless, sorrowful wail as the image of the spirit’s lonely, green eyes burned into the back of her eyelids.

And then--

* * *

\--Sakura woke up. She blinked; once, twice and then a third time just to make _triple_ sure that she was, in fact, staring at someone’s hairy ankles instead of a friendly face. When she was absolutely, _completely_ _sure_, Sakura reeled back with a muffled screech because _ew!_

“Don’t you guys know how to use razors?” She swiveled her head upwards, eye twitching as she glared up at Kakashi’s comical shock. “I mean, I get that we live in a big forest and it’s an _ aesthetic _or whatever, but really? Lumberjack isn’t a good look on you, sensei.”

She has no idea what possessed her to be so out-right and forth-coming to her teacher but she’s _ nervous _damnit! She’s allowed to freak out after those wacky dreams with the fox and the snake and gods-know-what-else.

She watched as her teacher’s face shifted awkwardly beneath his mask, relaxing at the familiarity as his single eye went wide from surprise, to relief, worry, and then right back to surprise. 

No creepy foxes. No disembodied voices. No big snakes. Just, _ humans _ . Sweet, dull, absolutely _ normal _ human beings with no stars in their eyes, no weird black cracks and absolutely no magic. 

Sakura pointedly ignored the feeling of uncertainty, shoving it deep down into her chest as she glared up at her instructor with a sort of intensity that’s fueled by sheer desperation.

Kakashi cleared his throat, looking all the world like hell just froze over with the way he was looking at her. “Right, so. Sakura,” he started, unusually gentle as he held his hands up. “You’ve uh. You’ve gone through a sudden _ change_, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, okay? We’re still your team.”

Sakura’s brain nearly crashed. “I…what?”

“Yes, well,” Kakashi crouched down in front of her, and pointedly stared at something on top of her head. “My thoughts precisely.” Then, he pulls out a mirror and puts it in front of her face.

Sakura stares, uncomprehending, at the very non-human, very pink and very much _ foxy face _ she now has. 

Then, she slowly pulls her gaze away from her freakishly big ears and stared unblinkingly at Kakashi with impossibly wide emerald eyes. “This isn’t a genjutsu, is it?” Sakura said serenely.

Wordlessly, he shook his head.

One of her eyes twitched. “You saw a big white fox with me, didn’t you?”

Kakashi nodded, feeling an oddly familiar sense of resignation settling in the pit of his gut. “No chakra signature, no clan or village insignia. It was there, and then it was gone.”

Sakura smiled. “Fuck. _ Fuck_.”

Abruptly, she turned her head up towards the moon and stands on all _ four _ of her legs, muzzle contorted in a vicious snarl as she screeched at the sky. “This isn’t what I agreed to, you furry _ bastard!_”

A little ways away, Naruto and Sasuke stared at their teammate. “Bastard,” Naruto murmured under his breath. “Are you seeing--?”

Sasuke blinked at the pink fox_-_ _Sakura?- _with no small amount of confusion as his teammate screeched profanities. “Yes.”

The blonde’s jaw went loose and dropped open as Sakura went from screaming at the moon to screaming at their hapless teacher. “Should we..?”

There was a long, considering moment of silence. Then, the Uchiha grunted. “No.”

Naruto scratched his cheek, then acquiesced to his teammate’s logic because-- yeah, he doesn’t really want to die. And, seeing as how Sakura’s going berserk on their _ jounin _ teacher, he doesn’t particularly wanted to get pummeled.

They both happily watched as Kakashi gets pounced by a pink, wailing fur-ball as Sakura attaches herself to his face. “A _ fox! _ ” She screeched into his ear, claws clacking against the steel of his hitae-ate. “‘It’ll be fine,’ you said! ‘It’ll be good practice,’ you said! _ Now look at where water-walking has gotten me! _ I’m barely one feet tall and more _ floof _ than _ skin!” _

* * *

Sakura felt awkward. Very, _ very_, awkward.

“Now Sakura,” Kakashi leaned over her ominously, his slate-grey eye boring into her as she shifted uncomfortably on the grass. “Do you want to run that by me again? Please. _ Please tell me that I misheard you. _”

“I may or may not have agreed to go to Uzushio for a fox spirit,” She licked her jowls, grinning up at him sheepishly. “And I, uh, m-may not have to take you guys there too.”

Massaging his temples, Kakashi leaned back with barely a hiss of displaced air to follow the movement. “And why, pray tell,” he gritted out, “would you do that after what happened the _ last time _ a Konoha-nin mingled with a fox.”

Sakura opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reply-- before realization kicked in and the sudden horror of it nearly made her choke. “T-the Kyuubi...”

_ There it is_, the bittersweet revelation he was waiting for. Kakashi promptly bit back a sigh as her ears swiveled back to pin against her head.

Things were already complicated enough on this team between Sasuke’s trauma and Naruto’s demon problem, so this? This was just… the cherry on top. Kizashi ‘Kingpin’ Haruno’s kid turning into a fucking _ fox _ of all things really wasn’t what he wanted to go back home and tell the rest of the lads about. 

God. Kizashi is going to murder him.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Kakashi tried to shove down the disappointment welling up in his chest. Disappointment in Sakura, disappointment in this mission-- but most of all, disappointment in _ himself _ . Kakashi was the one meant to keep an eye on them. Kakashi was the one meant to keep them in check. Kakashi was the one that was meant to prevent situations exactly like this from _ happening in the first place_. 

Sometimes, he wonders if he’s truly the prodigy everyone else claims him to be.

Kakashi’s too old for this-- never mind the fact that he’s only twenty-five. Regardless, he’s still _ too fucking old for this fox shit_.

Only sharply honed self-control made sure that he deadened his defensive reaction as he felt a weight settle on his thigh. “S-Sensei?” He glanced down at Sakura as she tentatively shifted her paws on his legs. “D-do you… I-I won’t be stuck like this forever, right?” 

If he was still back in his ANBU days-- hell, even just his recent _ jounin _days before Team Seven, he’d give her a firm slap on the back and a cheerful, ‘yes you’ve fucked yourself, bye!’ before wandering off to the book-store.

Then these kids came along, and everything changed.

Somehow, someway, these twerps have managed to worm their way into his cold, traumatized heart. These three brats, with limbs like twigs and with lingering baby fat clinging to their cheeks, trust him. _ Him_. They don’t see Friend-killer Kakashi, or the Copy Cat Nin, or Hound from ANBU-- they don’t even see him as an elite jounin of Konoha. All they see is Hatake Kakashi, their chronically late sensei with a love of dogs and a penchant for unsavory, age-restricted literature.

A strange warmth fills his chest and, with a breathless laugh, Kakashi settles a reassuring over his student’s head. “Everything will be alright, I’ll make sure of it. Trust in your elderly sensei a little more, Sakura-chan.”

Distantly, Kakashi realized that between Naruto’s constant hugging, Sasuke’s pleased smiles and Sakura’s fond eye-rolls, he never really stood a chance in the first place.

Sakura stared up at him with guileless green eyes, stark against the soft pink of her face as her whiskers swayed in the breeze. An eternity seems to pass before her head dipped down into a faint nod. “O-okay… Okay. I trust you.”

His lips quirk up into a smile beneath his mask. A new sense of peace eases the tension out of his muscles, and Kakashi carefully picks Sakura up to perch her on top of his shoulder. “Good. Now, what will you do next time a stranger corners you in a forest and tries to sketchily bargain with you?”

Sakura lets out a loud groan, still trying to figure out how to use her new limbs as she awkwardly flops down onto his shoulder. “Stranger danger, I _ know_.”

“Well, obviously you don’t know, otherwise we wouldn’t be in the mess.” 

“Sensei!”

“Don’t ‘sensei’ me, young lady. Or would that be young vixen?”

“Ewww,” Sakure poked her tongue out in disgust. “That sounds so _ weird _. Don’t call me that.”

Kakashi thought about it and then shrugged. “...It really does. Sorry.”

She just sighs. “It’s going to be a long trip home, isn’t it?”

He just grunted, because-- well. Yeah. Between a hyperactive blonde and a walking angst machine, things are going to get _ rough \_. “You’ll survive, if you glare at them enough,” Kakashi helpfully offered. “Maybe.”

Sakura groaned.

* * *

Dinner was an incredibly awkward affair.

Between Naruto’s endless questions about ‘wow, how did this happen?’ and ‘is it a jutsu?’ and ‘teach me, dattebayooo!’, Sakura was ready to kill a man and bury the remains. And, preferably, the victim would be blonde, small, and _ annoying_.

“So! _ So! _Can you still use your chakra? What about tree walking, can you do that? You gotta teach me, Sakura-chan!”

Sakura heroically ignored him, staring at the bowl of rice in front of her with dead eyes. She looked at the chop-sticks, then down at her thumb-less paws. She looked up.

Kakashi gave her a thumbs up from across the table, happily waving his own utensils around with a happily creased eye-smile.

Scowling, Sakura went back to glaring at her food and decidedly ignoring everything that came out of her teammate’s mouth. She was currently going through a _ life-changing situation _ and Naruto had the gall to look happy for her! While she was miserable! Because she was a _ fox_!

Why couldn’t she be a monkey instead, huh? At least then she’d have _ opposable thumbs_.

“Can foxes even eat cooked rice?”

She blinked, then turned to the person who had spoken. Sasuke stared back at her with a single brow arched, arms folded against his chest. “It’s a genuine concern,” he grumbled, tsking under his breath as he turned away.

Naruto joined in, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “What do foxes even eat, anyway? Aren’t they uh, c--... carn---, carnivals--? The things that only eat meat.”

Staring at her teammates with a gaping mouth, Sakura felt no small amount of horror dawn on her as she rapidly started shaking her head. “No, no, _ no_, I am _ not _ eating raw meat so you can stop looking at me like that! I have rights as a human being, and I will turn into a vegetarian if I have to.”

Kakashi leaned over the table and fixed her with a disapproving stare. “Sakura… If you eat that rice, you’ll be blocked up quicker than a civilian toilet.”

Opening her mouth to retort, Sakura ultimately thought better and closed it with a click. Instead, her enormous ears drooped down over her head as she compressed into a sulk ball of fluff in the middle of her shuriken-printed booster chair. “...Yes sensei.”

Kakashi pointed a chop-stick at Sasuke and Naruto threatening, his single eye narrowing in authority. “You two. Go outside and catch a couple birds like I taught you. Pluck them too.”

“Sure thing, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto jumped out of his chair, wooping with victory as he shoved his teammate’s face into a bowl of rice. Sasuke hissed his displeasure, bits of fried grain falling out of his hair as he sprinted after his teammate-- fingers already crooked in the tiger seal as he prepared a katon.

Shaking his head, Kakashi rounded the table and settled down in the chair next to Sakura. Quietly waving away Tsunami’s concerned hovering, he leaned back in his wooden chair and held back the urge to sigh. “Sakura? What’s wrong?”

He waited a couple moments, but finally straightened up as a quiet sniffle pierced the air. Alarmed, he popped out of his seat and crouched down next to Sakura’s-- floundering for a proper response as she continued to sniffle and whimper. “Sakura?”

“Kakashi-sensei,” she finally wailed out, head poking up from under her paws as glassy eyes tugged at his heartstrings, “w-what if I’m stuck like t-this forever? I-I don’t w-want to eat r-raw meat, sensei-- and I d-don’t want t-to lose my dad a-and my c-career! The fox said t-that if I d-did this, I could fix things, b-but… how am I meant to do that l-like this?”

Damn. Okay, he’s bad at this whole comforting thing, but he’ll try. He'll just... Just treat her like a puppy--. Well, it hasn’t failed him yet, so it's his best shot, really.

“Sakura,” he starts off, awkwardly ruffling the top of her head because _ jesus _anything else would just be really weird, “You’re not going to be stuck like this forever, and you’re not going to lose anything. The fox was probably just a genjutsu too strong to dispel, and had some lingering aftereffects. Once we get home to the village, everything’s going to be alright, okay?”

Sakura finally lifted her head to properly look at him, hiccups and coughs wracking her throat. “D-do I have to eat birds? I-I don’t… I don’t want to.”

Kakashi rolled his eyes. “Sakura-chan, I was going to _ cook them _. Foxes don’t just eat raw meat, they can eat cooked too. They can even eat berries and some cheeses, so no. You don’t have to eat raw meat.”

She blinked, the tension coiling around her shoulders loosening up as relief sunk in. “O-oh… Oh, thank goodness. That’d be really gross.”

He watched as she unwound herself from her pity-pile and cautiously hopped up onto the table. After a moment, Sakura bunches up the muscles in her hind-legs and leaps over the space between them-- landing squarely on top of his head. Bemused, Kakashi just raises a brow and looks up at her. “And what do you think you’re doing, rascal?”

“Making my bed,” she states factually, already patting down his hair as she prepared to curl up. “I don’t trust any of the boys to not squash me in their sleep.”

The jounin just sighs, begrudgingly agreeing with her logic as she finally settled down on her newest bed. “I spoil you kids. Back in my day, students respected their commanding officers.”

Sakura yawned, her head plonking down on top of his side-fringe. Her tail lazily swayed back and forth before curling around his head. “Back in your day, commanding officers were ANBU.”

Kakashi snorted, carefully leaning back so as to not dislodge her. “Careful or else I might just kick you off.”

A fluffy pink tail promptly smacked him in the face. “Shhhhhhhh… Quiet time.”

He scowled and just glared at the god-forsakenly soft appendage, spitting out stray hairs that got caught on his lips as Kakashi cursed whatever entity placed him on this team of complete, utter _ brats_.

Oh well, at least this wouldn’t be the first time he’s slept upright. Still, he couldn’t stop the feeling of dread that pooled in his stomach. Kakashi flared his chakra and relaxed slightly when he felt Naruto’s and Sasuke’s strong signatures pulse back. Regardless, he carefully stood up and made his way outside-- keeping a sharp eye glued on the two as leaned against the door-frame.

He flicked his eye up to the distant horizon, and mentally steeled himself for the future. Something was coming, Kakashi could feel it in his singing veins and pumping heart, and he had the oddest feeling it’d involve his kids.

He needed to make sure they were ready to face it-- and fast. Sakura was proof that he couldn’t protect them all the time, and he _ refused _ to let her down again. And that was a promise.

Staring thoughtfully into the star-speckled sky, Kakashi prepared himself for the future.

Deep within the star-speckled sky, two green orbs stared at the green-dotted planet. A great maw parted, breathing in the darkness and exhaling a new-born light as the fledgeling sun began to climb the sky.

**“F R E E U S , S̻̩̹̻̤ A̯͇̹ K̹̦̹̝̳͔͓̕ U̯͚͓͢ R̹̟̗̥͓̞̬ A̬̳̞̰.”**


End file.
